Do you take the Red Pill or the Blue Pill?
“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
Inside and outside of The Matrix movies it represents a choice. A decision between taking that one step further, that giant leap, or sticking with your safe and trusted little world, not knowing what the possibilities beyond it are.
Stick with Apple or move to Android, try a new takeaway instead of your usual, find a new job, or pack your bags and try a new life, all are choices you could make!
We all face these choices, the chance to seize an opportunity or take a gamble. That’s especially true when it comes to a new job, career move, or upping sticks for a whole new country. To put everything we currently have at risk is a huge bet, especially in these uncertain times, but that uncertainty also creates opportunity, and many people relish the challenge.
Leading theorists and thinkers have long suspected that life or the universe might all be some giant AI construct and that only few (the chosen ones) get to see what’s on the other side of the curtain.
American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick famously said that,
“We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs. These alterations feel just like déjà vu, a sensation that proves that a variable has been changed.”
The Matrix and Remix Culture
The red pill/blue pill idea also hints at the idea that everything is a remix, the same day, over and over with slightly different choices. We’ve seen it writ large in Groundhog Day and other comedies. If you feel like every day is becoming the same, how will you break out the cycle?
The Matrix itself is often considered a remix of the best bits of many martial arts movies, and concepts from other films. Putting the meta into a movie that likes to play with physics and reality makes it deeper still, and takes us on a merry-go-round.
As The Matrix was inspired by classics and cod sci-fi, it has gone on to inspire a new generation of clever ideas, Inception, Oblivion, several episodes of Doctor Who. But the message for you is do you stay in your current situation or take the red pill and prepare to try out a brave new world.
If you want to widen your eyes and mind to the possibilities, come to Landing Festival and see what it can do for you! You may find your next challenge among the many companies looking for tech workers.
